Hebridean Norn

[Àdhamh]

I'm going to post words I find in Gaelic -especially Hebridean Gaelic- in this place. I am accutely aware of the words which make Hebridean Gaelic different from my own Mid-Argyll tongue and more often than not, they turn out to be Norse borrowings. Mid-Argyll word, if different

We have already had:

tobhta -ruin
toft
làrach

sgudal -rubbish
traicleis

slaodach -slow
mall

tasg -insect larvae (i.e. from out of a cocoon), store
task -bag

Here's another one I just noticed:
sgioblaich -tidy or clear away
skiplaga -to build air castles
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean, but the similarity is striking. Given that the meaning is quite divergent, it may well be nothing, but I think it prudent to post these none-the-less.

And of course:
burn -fresh water
uisge

I will shortly post up the full list of Norse borrowings found by Oftedal in Leurbost, Lewis in the 1950s....

[Rogapl]

Your word list is very interesting. I can see the relationship with Gaelic and Norn for tobhta toft, sgioblaich and skiplaga. The relationship of tasg and task can be traced to Faroese where task n. f. is the word used for bag. In Old Norse töskur taska n. f is defined as bag. I could not find task defined as bag in Jacobsen's dictionary of Norn.

[Hrafn]

I shall try to take a look at it
As I can say now

toft / tobhta. We have many danish placenames in "toft, tofte". It's meaning is "a seperated area by fence" (like a field or private property)

tasg. Yes we have the word "taske" in danish too, which means "bag, purse"

skiplaga, The first element seems to be "skib" which means "ship", and "laga" is the word "to make, to do, to create". So skiplaga could be a place where you builds ships.

burn, It would not surprise me if it was the same word as danish "brønd." which means "well" where you do get fresh water from. In old icelandic the word is "brunnr", so if it is the same word, we first loose the ending -r, and then we get /r/ change place so it is now after the /u/ and not before it (trust me, sounds changing place is perfectly normal), and then we get "burn".

But about "slaodach", the last element may be the word "dagr" which means "day".

And I dont know about sgioblaich

[Àdhamh]

There is no shock in hearing of moving Rs by the way!

This happens in Gaelic between dialects as it is and moving Ns are common too!

[Àdhamh]

I tried to scan the word list from Leurbost, which was fine, but when I opened it in OmniPage to try to extract the material, it ended up a mess even though I uploaded the three columns seperately.

If anyone would like a copy of the page though to have a look at the Norse borrowings, they are welcome to drop me a line:

adhamhobroin@gmail.com

The book itself would not be a bad buy for anyone specifically interested in this kind of thing, although I'm not sure how widely available it now is. Here is the Google link to it:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oGZi ... rch_anchor

[Hnolt]

Thank you Adhamh!
I've moved this topic and the other one about Caithness words to this section, as they seem to be more related to Norn than Nynorn.

[Àdhamh]

Great, thanks

[Klüver]

'laga' could also come from 'leggja' 'to lay down', as that what you usually do to the keel of the ship.

[Àdhamh]

Ah, OK, cool....

[hlynur]

Hello, just noticed this interesting forum.
Coming from an icelandic perspective, there are a few possible similarities I see here.
So, if this might be of help, here are my thoughts:

tobhta > in icelandic »tóft« is a ruin, or what is left of the foundation of a ruined building, so that would seem a clear match.

slaodach > brings to mind the icelandic word »slóði« which means a trail or a path, but also has the derived meaning of someone that is slow, with the same origin as english "sloth"

sgioblaich > I wonder whether this could bear a similarity to icelandic »skófla« or shovel

sgudal > meaning rubbish, there is the icelandic »skítur«, meaning "dirt" or "shit"